Thomas Wassum's Software Engineering Blog

Monday, May 5, 2014

It seems that blogging might be to me what it was before. This has nothing to do with what's going on at the moment or what needs to be done, but more of a reflection on everything I've encountered to this day.

As I go into what hopefully is my last semester as an undergraduate, I want to take time to reflect on what everything really means. Is life what you make? How do you define a full life? What makes a person successful?

By no means have I lived an enjoyable life, but I've lived a full life. And I hope my life experiences teach future generations on what life can be. I enjoy doing school work because education is a lifelong process. No one can ever learn too much. But what does this have to do with my endeavors into the computational sciences? Not much really. Computers are my escape. Computers provide an alternate universe to me. Computers can help me create what the physical world cannot. But how does this help everyone else? Does it make people more "anti-social"? My dad told me something that was made personal to me, but it can be applied to everyone who understands it. "Everyone has a niche. Find your niche and you will do great things."

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Aloha! I have a proposition that could help beef up the current HHSAA website with content that is will benefit students/athletes, coaches, and parents. Currently, I'm a student at Hawaii Pacific University, taking a class on Software-as-a-Service, and would like to use what we are learning to help revamp your current site. If you would like to discuss in further detail what I have in mind, or what we can do to help you, please do not hesitate to ask.

While I was a member of the fine armed forces of the United States, I noticed a few things that could make the use of current software in Army Aviation more logical as well as user friendly. I am currently a Computer Science major at Hawaii Pacific University and am taking a course in Software-as-a-Service. While the idea isn't to create a whole new product from the ground up, what I'd like to propose in keeping up with the time honored traditions of any service member, past or present, is that we change something to better link a couple programs that bog down computers. If you have any more questions, feel free to email me.

My classmates and I are involved in a class that is teaching Software-as-a-Service (Saas). I came up with the great idea of finally helping you out with your struggles on the Excel spreadsheet by creating a possible software solution for your group needs. What would be ideal is that we have a sit down together and discuss what you truly need the program to do, and how we can fit those needs into our abilities to create beautiful programs for everyday computer users that love golf. The true ideas behind what I have in mind can be found here and here.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if this sounds like something you'd be willing to do.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

I had an out there idea about helping streamline the HHSAA (Hawaii High School Athletic Association) website to keep things up to date at all times. (You can read that blog at this wonderful location :))

While I'm not currently in contact with anyone at HHSAA, that doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. The real idea is to keep Hawaii High School events up-to-date for a multitude of reasons. The idea of stakeholders in this are astronomical!!! Here are a few that swim to the top of my head

1) Student Athletes- It will help student athletes keep track of their "stats" for future use when trying to gain recognition for schools at the next level. While scouting still happens, quantifiable data is hard to beat, especially if it's verified by a third party.

2) Parents- Oahu has a strong military footprint. With that being said, a lot of parents are not physically on the Island, and a lot can be said with the stats that are put out in public forum. Even if it's just a stat line, I know that seeing my children did something, no matter how far I am, is worth checking every day. I say with the upmost certainty that a lot of parents feel the same way.

3) College Coaches- Athletes create a buzz, no matter the sport. College Coaches can start "tracking" possible future athletes and create their own type of sabremetric system to "rank" student athletes.

While these are only three ideas of possible stakeholders, I'm very certain that if you're reading this blog, and understand the idea, you could come up with a few more yourself. PLAY HARD!!!!

Let's ponder my vaguely descriptive post about my trials and tribulations in army aviation. The current program does work, but how to we get it to work better, with less time "looking" for stuff.

To answer a question from the comments of the original post, this program is more of an Aviation Logistics Support/Maintenance Help idea.

Take a problem with an aircraft, let's say the number 1 engine (if it's a multiengine airframe, that would be the farthest to the left when look from back to front) doesn't start. When the fault is entered, the program will "help" the maintainers by bringing up a troubleshooting tree in the manual, and then moving through the steps with the maintainer. Current programs out there (as current as 2012) allow for a Technical Manual to do this, but not the actual logbook that stores all aircraft information. It would work almost like a hyperlink.

Who could benefit?

1) Department of Defense- One program helps the defense budget cut down by allowing one program, written by one company, to do what 2 or more programs do now. While this may seem like a monopoly, it's only for one facet of the Department of Defense, and not for creating unfair business practices.

2) Maintainers- The one stop shop of a program creates less lost time "looking" between two or more programs to get a job fixed. Less lost time creates a better "operational readiness" outlook.

3) Commercial airlines- If the program works for the largest organization in the world, why wouldn't it work in the private sector as well? All companies are worried about profit, and a simple, or not so simple, program could create less spending on technology.

One day this idea will come to life, or maybe it's in the works. Either way, technology is taking over businesses at a fast rate, to help move things faster and faster.